Not To Be Trusted With Knives

Well, well, well.  Documents handed over to the Commons Industry Committee reveal that, as we all knew anyway, the Conservatives did, in fact, know that Statistics Canada did not support the scrapping of the mandatory long form of the census and then replacing it with a voluntary survey. Furthermore, they tried to get Stats Canada to change its communications to make it sound like Stats Can supports a voluntary survey instead of a mandatory long form ((e.g., suggesting the removal of the phrase “a census by its design is able to meet a broader range of data demands than a survey” [Source])) and to make it sound like it wasn’t the government decision ((e.g., one of Clement’s policy advisers asked Stats Canada in an email to remove the phrase “as per government decision” from communications about the change to the census. [Source])) (Gee Tony, if it’s such a good idea, why don’t you want anyone to know that your government made this decision?).  Stats Can told Tony Clement’s office that using a voluntary survey will not provide “an acceptable outcome for a census,” but Clement continued to make public claims that Stats Can supported the move. Case in point: at McGill University on July 15, Clement said: “I would say to those who are the self-proclaimed experts on this, if you trust Statistics Canada why don’t you trust the option that they put forward to obtain the data that businesses and municipalities deem to be necessary.”